Boston Bruins Fans Still Waiting for a new GM.
The Boston Bruins fan base seemed pretty happy that Peter Chiarelli was turfed out of his job as the B’s general manager. I am one of those fans. Sure, Peter Chiarelli helped put together the Cup team in 2011(and I’ll happily buy him a beer if I ever get to talk to him again).
Chiarelli’s biggest sin (although the Tyler Seguin and/or the Johnny Boychuk trades are up there) was that he was trying too hard to keep the spirit of 2011 alive. Too many long-term, no-trade contracts, and not enough draft picks that could come in and help the team go forward.
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From day one, you had the feeling that B’s President Cam Neely just wanted to say “Don Sweeney‘s my guy, and he’s now going to be our guy in Boston.” Sweeney played with Neely, they have similar ideas on hockey, and they both came up through the ranks to their present positions.
Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs seemed to have other ideas. It seems that he was the impetus for the long and exhaustive search that seems to have gone nowhere. The Bruins only had a small number of actual candidates to begin their search, and the finalist pool only really came down to three or four contenders (with Sweeney being the frontrunner).
Then the Bruins options started to dwindle. Ray Shero was a serious candidate, but he agreed to come on board as the GM for the New Jersey Devils. Jeff Gorton, who briefly held the reins of power in Boston before Chiarelli came on board is still in limbo. As the assistant GM for the New York Rangers, he won’t receive permission from the club to interview as long as the Rangers are still in the playoffs. Even if the Rangers get eliminated, it’s not likely that the Rangers will want the distraction this season.
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So, if Sweeney was the chosen candidate, why all the smoke and mirrors? There are a few possibilities.
They haven’t found a suitable replacement for Claude Julien yet. With the Bruins going through a long song-and-dance for the GMs job, the last thing they want to do is have an encore performance of that looking for a new head coach. On the other side of the coin, it’s possible the Bruins have a coach lined up and they want to make a one-two announcement when everything lines up properly for the B’s.
The Bruins want to at least go through the motions of interviewing Jeff Gorton. Gorton was an early favorite on the radar, but the Ranger’s post-season has put the kibosh on the interview. Once the Rangers get eliminated, the organization would at least sit down with him to see if he might supplant Sweeney as the number one contender.
The Bruins will need to figure this out, and figure it out soon. The 2015 Entry Draft is coming up soon, and the Bruins will need someone in the GMs chair to oversee it.